I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I've got shirts to press The tots to dress

Susan notes: This poem is dedicated to lives cut short because of struggle, violence, illness, poverty, neglect, fear, hatred, conflict, and for no apparent reason other than they were called by angels, anywhere and everywhere in the world, yesterday, today, tomorrow and always, as well as to relationships and years gone by, not that we should forget them, but that they should become the fertile ground in which we sow the seeds of the future.

Susan notes: this beautiful piece by Cory Eldridge found me in a roundabout way. Someone had posted a link to another story by Eldridge on a blog that I follow.

After I savoured the short essay, which I can only describe as one of the best pieces of writing about expat workers that I have ever read, I scrolled down to find the one below about two young Muslim girls in an American schoolyard. It's also beautiful. And particularly touching given the recent stabbing murder of Marwa Sherbini, 31, an Egyptian woman living in Germany.